Hi there!
Suddenly a blonde is made in charge of the Terran Alliance
I've been playing Crusade by creating a Gigantic galaxy, 13 Opponents, Difficulty Normal.
Every time I meet other AI opponents, I'm way behind. It's disheartening. I'm been trying to go Benevolent.
How do you start quickly so you don't end up way way behind?
Sheri
i'd recommend playing a smaller map with less opponents. this gives you a little easier time to learn the game (and usually plays faster + faster turns)
there is no perfect start due to rng (anomalies and stuff) can drastically change your options, or you might get lucky on bonus tiles.
that being said, i usually build a space elevator and then the shipyard. moving on after that to the research building. my preference is to save my starting cash for buying mercs or building asteroid mines.
Don't neglect the asteroid mines. In Crusade they contribute directly to your raw production, which in turn determines your base social and ship manufacturing, your research, and your income. If you have the Mercenaries DLC, I recommend buying a fast scout, which will let you find new planets, resources, and anomalies much faster, and perhaps a merc survey ship like the Ysengard. Your starting survey ship and the Ysengard can explore the lightly defended anomalies by themselves if you give them time to heal between battles.
I second the recommendation to start your game with fewer opponents to give yourself more room to expand, then later add more opponents when you have more experience.
Don't hesitate to create your own custom faction. The Xenophobic attribute gives you greatly enhanced research and social construction at the cost of reduced ship production. Intuitive gives you extra research to start with. Wealthy starts with extra raw production on every planet. Ancient gives you extra research on all your planets for every precursor artifact you control. Try combinations of those, or others that look interesting to you.
i might also recommend going aquatic race type, unless they have changed the schools getting +1 research for adjacency bonus, instead of the default. The morale buildings they get are good too, and give +1 to like everything beside them.
Thanks for all the suggestions! Keep them coming!
I usually go with the Benevolent and pick the one that gives me 150 research point.
What should I research first? I'm kind of at a loss about what are the best things to research.
I don't claim to be the best GC3 player in the world, so take this with a grain of salt. Anyway, I usually start with Artificial Gravity to get the +1 moves. Then I do Colonial Settlements and Planetology to get the +1 raw production on all planets. Note that I almost always play as Carbon based, not synthetic or silicon. If I'm on a Large or smaller map I usually then do Universal Translator so that I can trade an Open Borders treaty with any AI I meet, and then Xeno Commerce (primarily for the Entertainment Center). If I'm on a map larger than Large, so that I'm less likely to meet AIs soon (I don't play with tons of opponents, personal preference), I often do Interstellar Travel and Hyperdrive Specialization to get an additional +1 moves for my survey vessel before doing the Universal Translator. From there, I tend to concentrate on governance/colonization/engineering rather than warfare until I have medium hulls, then try for a a decent weapon (usually missiles), and some defense before building a fleet. I'm almost always able to keep the hostile AIs at bay via open borders treaties, trade, and diplomacy.
As for ideology, the 150 point benevolent pick is good, but I often go with the one that gives you the building that generates ideology points first (since it also gives +2 approval adjacency), or the pragmatic choice that gives you the 3 free constructors.
Hope this helps!
Thanks!
For developing planets I've been going with buying a Xeno farm first and then a city.
What do you usually buy first for your planets? Should I buy a space elevator first?
I always build a space elevator first, with a deep core mine next to it on colonies. I prefer to concentrate my farms on planets that are favorable for them (wild grain tiles, for example) and put a food distribution center in the middle of the farms to get the percentage boost as well as the adjacency bonuses. In my most recent game I had a planet producing over 60 food that way.
Certainly with the 2.5 update increasing the value of population, and the cities' adjacency bonuses helping the space elevator and deep core mine, it's a good idea to put one next to them. I tend to do it only when the population is just about to hit the cap, though.
Aside from that, I also plop down an entertainment center next to the benevolent/pragmatic/malevolent improvement that has the +2 approval adjacency, since high approval gives +25% to various planetary production elements.
I'll also put down a cultural center to try to get my planet's influence the spread to the nearest asteroids so that I can build bases on them. Either that or try to place a mining base where it will not only mine resources but also grab asteroids.
Personally i would go with silicon for this reason. You dont get food, but you have to spend an administation point or more on a duranthium starbase. This i would do no matter who i was. Duranthium is good for upgrading factories, and starbases, and growing if your silicon. The real advantage is more tiles for other stuff on the planet. The disadvantage is maybe a miniscule amount slower on upgrading. This would mean an unnoticable amount of less resources with less manufacturing.
Silicon is a very viable strategy. I've enjoyed the games I've played as Slyne and Onyx. But for my personal taste I don't care for their other characteristics, so the next time I want to play it I think I'll create a custom race.
Blondie, don't worry about being way behind. Even experienced and capable players look from the graphs like they've spent the whole game losing. The current game I've just about gotten wrapped up as the Yor have suddenly surrendered, and I've finally gotten up to 2nd place in something (in this case tech - and not from a big research base).
IMO, the most important thing you can spend your effort on is your relations with your fellow not-crazy races. (Even the Drengin aren't totally crazy and will bow to the inevitable.) Benevolent can cause you more problems that it solves, unless you're sandwiched in between Benevolent races (Altarian, Torian(?), Iconian). Even those races will respect Pragmatic if you don't cross them. Good relations benefits you in a number of ways: They will trade with you; they will give you money (later in the game); and most of all, they will trade techs with you. I doubt that I've actually researched half the techs I have now.
Anyway, there's no magic "starting formula" that will keep you from appearing to be way behind in the early game. But the fact is that being way behind is no an indication of how things will turn out in the end.
BTW, I don't have Crusade, but for these purposes, it's essentially the same as the base game.
Thanks for all the input!
I'm going to try another game with:
1. put all the farms on one planet not one farm each planet.
2. build a space elevator, then a mining core, then specialize in either factory, lab or market, or farm.
3. Try pragmatic rather than Benevolent.
Is this a good strategy?
What ships do you build? Usually I just build basic ships, scouts, constructors, colony ships.
Sheri.
Usually, with my open borders treaties and diplomacy keeping the AIs from attacking too soon, I get medium hulls before I start building warships. Then I build medium hulled Escorts (of my own design) with as many types of defenses as I have researched, one engine, no sensors, one life support, and fleet them up with medium hull capital ships with one engine, one life support, one sensor, and as many weapons as I can. Although the AIs almost always view me as very weak (unless I've been lucky and found a bunch of ships in anomalies), my escort/capital fleets can almost always beat the tiny/small fleets they send. I also use cargo hulls to design sensor ships with an engine, life support, and as many sensors as I can cram on them. Then I can see the AI fleets coming, and since they rarely invest in engines I have time to get my fleets to them and am not surprised.
In the early game I build colony and constructor ships, and hire the best mercenary scout and survey I can.
Put the space elevator in the middle untill you can build a city. Starbases are important. Duranthium, elerum, and anti matter are important at the start. Brindles observatory, and anti matter power plant. Promethium is important. Dont forgett to upgrade your planetary resources.
BTW, the Designer in GCIII is easier to use in some ways, but not nearly as much fun as the one in GCII. I still haven't figured out how to rotate a ship so I can place the components precisely. I suspect that there is no way.
Have you tried holding down the middle mouse button (in my case that means pressing down on the wheel) and moving the mouse? Doesn't have fine control but it does work.
I do that for the main map plane tilt, but I'll try it on the designer. Thanks!
Is there a way to tell your scout ships to go to one star and then another, and another, ie input a sequence of moves?
I dont think so are we talking about explored, or.unexplored stars.
Publius, that works a treat! Thank you.
I believe there is an Auto-Scout, but no, you can't do multi-leg plotted movement.
If your starsystem has 4 or more asteroids, you can start by:
turn 1) rush shipyard, rush constructorturn 2) rush space elevatorturn 3+ remember to keep some money in reserve for potential future asteroid mines.
place the constructor next to at least two asteroids and build the mines as soon as possible.
If you make a custom civ, take 2 constructors as starting ships and get the asteroid mines that way.
If you find a star with 5+ asteroids it is worth spending an admin point on. Usually you also get a this way.
Asteroid mines help you to a fast start, which makes your life exponentially easier down the road.
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